Stadium's A Plague On Our Houses

Having already spent money on seats for a ball game, many fans will be cruising the streets of our (previously) quiet, safe neighborhood, looking for free parking spots - and why not? Our residential-area parking is closer, cheaper, less aggravating than threading one's way from some obscure, expensive lot or garage 15 blocks away.

And who's to advise the stadium-goer just which lots and garages might already be full, should s/he even wish to be decent and leave our neighborhood's residential parking to the residents?

I must ask:

Who will be responsible for the inevitable litter? (Me? Sweeping my walk after every game?)

How will traffic congestion be controlled - tearing down homes on Spring Garden Street to widen the roadway?

What about the safety of our children playing ball on our quiet streets?

And the noise?

We have fought and worked for decades to create a pleasant and real neighborhood for people who work in this city. The city has reaped the benefits of the Spring Garden area in the form of a committed, urban community which has done everything right. And the city should now take some ethical responsibility for supporting and honoring a neighborhood it has, itself, encouraged. That does not include a baseball stadium being plopped down in our midst.

Put the stadium in an area where the residents welcome it, where the costs of property and roadway adjustments are fiscally prudent, where there is real-world space for real stadium parking and where another community can invest decades in pridefully building up around it.

Frieda Fehrenbacher is an art professor at Moore College of Art.